a lot of news and we're just getting started. tomorrow is super tuesday. the whole gang will be there tomorrow night. tune in. if you want to find me online, go to @arimelber. or arimelber.com. or just keep it locked on msnbc. we'll see you tomorrow for the big night. right now, it is "the reidout" with joy reid, starting now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> putin has so little respect for obama that he's starting to throw around the nuclear war

today. nuclear. did you see maduro, venezuela -- unbelievable. even argentina, they went maga. you know, argentina, great guy. >> we're a recent that just recently heard that saudi arabia and russia will be -- oh. >> what? donald trump slurring his words once again, and unable to remember who the current president is. displaying his cognitive unfitness just in time for the supreme court to hand him another big victory on his way to the republican nomination. also tonight, trump left highly sensitive classified documents unprotected behind a cheap shower curtain in his bathroom at mar-a-lago. now, as the likely republican nominee, we're facing the scary prospect that he could start receiving classified briefings again. plus, after calling for an immediate cease-fire in gaza, vice president kamala harris meets with netanyahu's chief

political rival. while trump says very little about the situation in gaza. but we begin tonight with today's date, march 4th. today was supposed to be the first day of donald trump's federal election interference trial. we in the news business all had it marked on our calendars but that is no longer the case. that trial has been delayed, delayed, and delayed again, to the point that it might not even happen before november's election, if ever. this is partly due to the conservative majority supreme court that seems to be playing the game as if they are on team maga. they're taking their merry time deciding trump's case on the absurd notion of complete presidential immunity which comes down to whether a president is allowed to try and overturn the election with the help of a violent mob of supporters and simply claim that it was part of his official duties as president.

so he should be given a free pass. today, the court provided trump with yet another legal win, reversing the colorado supreme court's decision to kick him off the state's primary ballot pursuant to section 3 of the 14th amendment which bars oath breaking insurrectionists from running for office again. to few people's surprise, the decision was unanimous. the justices all agreed that colorado stepped over the line, with the decision reading, quote, we conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office, but states have no power under the constitution to enforce section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency. this was a victory not just for trump but for chief justice john roberts who clearly wanted a unanimous ruling. and while trump took his victory lap today, it should be noted that the justices only answered the legal question of the extent of a state's authority to kick someone off the ballot.

the court did not delve into the underlying question of whether or not trump's actions leading up to and including january 6th did in fact make him an insurrectionist. which must have been a relief for insurrectionist accomplice ginni thomas' husband, justice clarence thomas, who sat in on the case rather than recusing himself for, you know, conflict of interest. and the unanimity of the decision was more of a kind of. there were two concurring opinions that devinated in significant ways from the overall opinion. in one of the concurrences from justice sotomayor, elena kagan, and ketanji brown jackson, they referred to trump as an oath breaking insurrectionist not once, not twice, but four times in six pages. and they question the propriety of the court's conservatives seeming to dictate how the 14th amendment should be enforced. quoting no less than the dobbs

decision that overturned roe v. wade in their opening line. quote, if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, than it is necessary not to decide more. and then closing with nothing less than bush v. gore. the case that three of their colleagues worked on as bush side attorneys. writing, quote, what it does today, the court should have left undone. ouch. ouch. and in her own brief concurring opinion, conservative justice amy coney barrett may have giving us a glimpse affwhat to expect from the conservative majority in the coming supreme court hearings on presidential immunity. as she agreed that her fellow conservatives did too much but for a different reason. writing, the court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a presidential election. particularly in this circumstance, writings on the

court should turn the national temperature down. not up. perhaps someone should inform justice barrett that trying to lower the national temperature shouldn't be the court's concern. their only concern should be interpreting the law, according to the constitution, which is actually their entire job. i mean, i don't think the brown v. board of education decision turned down the national temperature, far from it. this court's dobbs decision set the national temperature point to boiling. and coney barrett and friends didn't seem to mind that at all. to return just for a moment to the three liberal justices, they dropped one more giant anvil on their right wing colleagues. writing that it appeared the majority was looking to insulate donald trump from future controversy. adding that the ruling shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement of section 3, in scotus language, that's like playing the dozens and talking about your mama. consider the gauntlet thrown.

today, colorado secretary of state jena griswold shared her disappointment in the court's decision and she pointed out the flaw of leaving this mess for congress to fix. >> my larger reaction is disappointment. i do believe that states should be able under our constitution to bar oath breaking insurrectionists. and ultimately, this decision leaves open the door for congress to act to pass authorizing legislation. but we know that congress is a nearly nonfunctioning body. >> joining me now is a professor of constitutional law at nyu school of law, and melissa murray, also a professor of law at new york university, msnbc legal analyst, and former law clerk to justice sotomayor. thank you both for being here. this is like a dream panel for this. i have to go to you first, melissa. i'm sorry but i don't speak supreme courtese, but all i read

was shade, shade, and more shade from your former boss, justice sotomayor, and her colleagues. they open in their what felt like more of a dissent, honestly, than a concurrence, in which they said, y'all did too much. you just had to say states can't enforce section 3 and leave it there, but you felt like you had to tell people how to enforce section 3. did you read that as shade as i did? >> i think it was shade all the way down, joy. and more than that, i think this was nominally a concurrence, but it had real big "d" energy, dissent energy. they made clear this is a court that's kind of high on its own supply. it name checked the chief justice in the first opening paragraph. again, i think that was meant to indicate he was the principal architect of the opinion, and also to make clear that someone who is an institutionalist of this court didn't necessarily seem to be an institutionalist

in this instance where the court went much further than they needed to to decide this question. by the end, these three ladies were essentially saying that this court is pretty much enabling donald trump in a lot of ways. not necessarily directly, but in these opinions and going further than they have to, they basically laid a foundation where section 3 is virtually inoperative after the election, and congress is authorized to do everything, but congress as jena griswold said, is not really in a position to act expeditiously going forward. >> it's a nonfunctional entity. to say, let them fix it is like saying don't fix it. kenji, welcome to the show. so great to get a chance to talk with you. it seemed to me that at the end, and it definitely felt to me like a john roberts opinion now that i read a few of these. i read enough that i recognized his voice a little bit. he writes or somebody writes, all nine members of the court agree with this overall result. our colleagues writing separately further agree with

many of the reasons the opinion provides for reaching it. then they talk about blah blah blah. so far as we can tell, they object only our taking into account the way section 3 works. these are not the only reasons the states lack that power, they're important ones as is the combination, like this is kind of condescending, these are important things but not the important things our colleague would have. it seemed like there was a little bit of snidery at the end of his decision in saying these people are dissenting but they really don't dissent. do you read it as a lot of people, a guy named mark joseph stern actually went and double clicked on it and looked at the metadata. it seemed the way the decision was originally put out, it was put out like a dissent, but that they put it out as a concurrence. do you -- what do you think of the intrigue about whether this was truly a concurrence or a

dissent? >> sorry. i 100% agree. i was about to raise mark joseph stern's sleuthing here where still if you copy paste an opinion, try this, sotomayor, brown, and kagan, and you copy and paste it into another document, it will show up. so this is kind of extraordinary, an extraordinary window into the fact that this was probably originally written as a dissent. i find it very hard to look at that jab through dobbs of saying you told us to be minimalists, chief justice roberts, to the majority opinion as anything other than look, this was chief justice roberts who wrote the opinion. i will add to that, under this kind of very thin veneer of unanimity, there are so many

dissensions roiling underneath that surface. i will add to that only amy coney barrett policing the dissent, because she says i would not amplify this disagreement with stridency. essentially she's saying i agree with you on substance. i just disagree with the tone of the dissenters. it's pretty kind of fierce over there, with regard to the level of tension under the very, very thin veneer of unanimity. >> absolutely. i'm sorry but the three dissenters, they give me life. they give me life ever lasting every time they write something. it's like, i love it. this is another thing. this is from the ruling. it says the case raises the question of whether the states in addition congress may also enforce section 3. we conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office, but states have no power under the constitution to enforce section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency. okay, if that's the case, let me

come to you kenji, first. in article 2, section 1, clause 5 of the constitution. now i'm playing lawyer on tv, no person shall except for a natural born citizen or citizens of the united states at the time of the adoption of the constitution shall be eligible to the office of president, so if states can't enforce section 3 of article 14, can they enforce that? couldn't a 12-year-old say i'm running for president, or arnold schwarzenegger? could a state knock them off the ballot? that's a federal office. they would be running for president. if the states can't enforce it, it they enforce this? >> absolutely, if i want taylor swift or prince harry to be president, two figures i know are near and dear to my colleague professor murray's heart, why shouldn't i be able to vote for them as well? chief justice roberts has an answer to that in saying the

14th amendment gave a lot more power to the federal government. whether or not that's a sufficient answer i think is a really important question for us to be asking. and there's certainly a stark textual contrast in between the obviously self executing provisions like you need to be 35 years old or need to be a natural born citizen on the one hand, and you can't have engaged in an insurrection as an oath breaker on the other. >> and then, melissa, where do you think this leaves -- there doesn't need to be enabling legislation for you not to be 35 and be president, so if this is not self executing, how could congress keep an oath breaker out of office? what would that law have to say? >> that's the million dollar question, joy. i would also back up a little bit to say, you need to read this decision in light of the court's other decisions on the reconstruction amendments. and this is a court that for years has been hell bent on limiting congress's authority to

enforce the provisions of the 14th amendment and the other reconstruction amendments. think about shelby county v. holder for example. it is never, ever trying to give broad grants of power to congress to enforce rights. it's always prioritizes the prerogatives of states under these circumstances. here's the unusual circumstance where we see the court inexplicable prioritizing the states and apparently airigating some power to congress. that never happens in this court. and certainly not with respect to the reconstruction amendments. i think it belies the fact that although this gestures toward expanding the authority of congress to enforce section 3 of the 14th amendment, the real root that has been given power here is the court to decide what the scope and substance of the reconstruction amendments mean. and they have given power to themselves. this is an ongoing theme with this court. a 6-3 super conserve majority

that is constantly trying to limit the authority of congress and take that power for itself. >> absolutely. it says clearly, pending court review, they should do a law. it is wild. last question to you, kenji. they go on about this patchwork that would likely result if you allowed a state like colorado to make this decision. to your point, only the three dissenters, the three concurrent dissenters have been consistent in saying the federal government should be able to enforce the right to vote and access to the ballot. the other six are really not on that page. and they don't seem to mind the other six the patchwork when it comes to disenfranchising laws, laws that make it harder to vote in georgia than colorado. then they think the patchwork is fine. doesn't that seem a bit inconsistent? >> it's very strange. i want to bolster what professor murray just said right now, which is this is not a conservative majority that seems to be expansionists with regard to federal power or a court that

has been concerned about this patchwork. so we can think about the bernie case or thinking about the harper case. case studies of each of those. so this is really inconsistent, and it leads to the conclusion that as sotomayor said in the oral arguments, this is gerrymandering around one person. this is a rule for one person and that person is trump. >> there you go. kenji and melissa, thank you both very much. up next on "the reidout," trump claimed today that this case was brought for political reasons. well, i will ask one of the republican plaintiffs in the case, yes, most are republicans and none were democrats or bidens, i'll ask them if they think it was decided by joe biden. "the reidout" continues after this. i used to leak urine when i coughed, laughed or exercised. i couldn't even enjoy playing with my kids. i leaked too. i just assumed it was normal. then we learned about bulkamid - an fda-approved, non-drug solution for our condition.

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essentially, you cannot take somebody out of a race because an opponent would like to have it that way. while most states were thrilled to have me, there were some that didn't. and they didn't want that for political reasons. >> the twice impeached four times indicted adjudicated sexual assaulter and apparently deep in his basement former president earlier today responding to the supreme court's decision that states don't have the authority to kick him off the 2024 ballot. claiming that states that challenged his eligibility only did so for political reasons.

joining me now to respond to that is janay nelson, president and direct counsel of the legal defense fund who wrote a brief urging the supreme court to enforce the 14ict amendment, and christa kafer, a lead plaintiff in the colorado case who voted for trump in 2020. thank you both for being here. christa, i want to go to you first. the former president donald trump, and i hope he's okay because he appears to be locked in his basement, said it was brought by president biden for political reasons. but you're a named plaintiff on the case and my understanding is all of you are republicans or independents. am i right about that? >> exactly. we're all independents or republicans. in fact, more republicans than not. and we were concerned about somebody who fomented insurrection in an attempt to overturn an election. and disenfranchise 80 million people. we know it's very clear to the 14th amendment if you take an

oath of office and attempt to subvert that oath, foment violence, foment insurrection, you do not get to run again. we're very disappointed that the court has seen otherwise. >> what do you make of the argument by the court, and it was umanmous in this sent. they disagreed on other things but all nine seem to agree that you can't allow a state to enforce section 3 because each state might enforce it differently based on different criteria and so you would have sort of chaos if each state could decide whether somebody have violated section 3 or not. what do you think of that conclusion? >> i'm not unsympathetic, i know it would be disruptive. the fact is that if we do not enforce the constitution, if we keep an insurrectionist on the ballot, that's not disruptive, that's dangerous. and in the past, this particular court has not been particularly concerned with outcomes. many of them see themselves as originalists, meaning you apply

the law no matter what. you don't concern yourself with the outcome. now all of a sudden they're living constitutionalists and they're concerned about the outcome, not the law. the writers of the 14th amendment, they had seep what insurrectionists could do to a country. they put this in there for our protection and they have essentially rendered it moot by saying only congress can make that determination. >> wow, janay, let me go to you on that. it's like, i don't remember -- i read the dobbs decision, which i have to say, the three dissenting concurrence ladies, they quoted dobbs out of the gate, and the point being that dobbs created utter chaos. women have died as a result of dobbs. no one knows whether you can be arrested in one state, not arrested in others. can you leave your state if you want to get an abortion? they weren't concerned about the chaos. then for you specifically, the legal defense fund is litigating, we have a map here of how many states you all are litigating questions about

access to the ballot, questions about redistricting, questions about the right to vote. that's how many states. you can see it's most of the states. have an up in the air question about access to the ballot. what do you make of the majority, the conservative majority now saying oh, my god, we're concerned about chaos and, you know, the things happening differently in different states? >> you know, there are two matters, joy, that really are irksome about this division. there are many more. one is that our system of elections differs state to state always. in any manner of ways. you might be able to use a voter id in one state and not in another state. you might be able to vote by mail in one state and not in another state. we're used to having a patchwork. that's not new. that's actually our election system and it's been our election system for our entire existence. that's just number one. i think what i find most

concerning and it's such a sad irony is that this court is saying that congress can enforce the 14th amendment and enact legislation to protect against the vote, against voter disenfranchisement, i just came back from selma this weekend where people who were violently disenfranchised took to a bridge to peacefully march to ask for their constitutional rights. compare to people who stormed the capitol and wreaked havoc on our nation and threatened the lives of elected officials. and there's a protection for those individuals, but not protection for the marchers who tried to make our entire democracy fair for everyone. so this court is saying that congress can enact legislation in this particular way, if it wants to protect against insurrection. and it has a situation where congress acted pursuant to clear

authority and they actually gutted the voting rights act over ten years ago which opened the door to much of this havoc. so the hypocrisy is not lost with me. >> you're absolutely right. that was the enabling legislation for the 14th and 15th amendments. the enabling legislation was the voting rights act and it's getting violated and they keep undercutting it and saying we don't need that. they don't respect the enabling legislation when it is passed. i'm going to give you the last word on this because what do you want to see happen now? you're a republican voter. they're saying your primary ballot must include someone who you as even a republican who voted for him view as an insurrectionist. it seems in this case i'm not sure why arnold schwarzenegger doesn't run for president, put himself on a ballot, and litigate it. why doesn't a 12-year-old, a brilliant 12-year-old go on the ballot and say it's not self executing for this either, for the age piece. none of it is self executing. for you, what do you want to see

happen now? >> i couldn't agree more. i mean, actually, i think that george w. bush or barack obama would be better than either of the two candidates that we'll see this fall, but they can't under the constitution, and we know it's self executing. so since the court did not do its duty and congress also didn't do its duty during the impeachment trial to keep an insurrectionist off the ballot, it is now time for the people to act. and make sure that we have someone in office who is not fomented violence in order to top the peaceful transfer of power. >> janay, you're a friend of the show, but kristen, i want to let you know, the door is open. you can come back any time. you're making colorado look good and smart. i love it. thank you for being here. it's so wonderful to see a rational republican who is still existing. yes. makes us very happy. thank you very much. >> thank you. there's more of us than we know.

>> thank you. >> and coming up, but her emails. remember when republicans were all bent out of shape about hillary clinton getting classified briefings while running for president? and she didn't even have a hoard of classified documents stashed in her bathroom. we'll be right back. ♪everything i do that's for my health is an accomplishment.♪ ♪concerns of getting screened faded away♪ ♪to my astonishment.♪ ♪my doc gave me a script i got it done without a delay.♪ ♪i screened with cologuard and did it my way.♪ cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45 plus at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪i did it my way!♪

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we're still waiting for

judge aileen cannon to decide on a trial date in the classified documents case against donald trump. originally scheduled for may 20th. on friday, justice department lawyers proposed a july 8th start, while trump's lawyers say it's unfair to hold it before the election. trump faces 41 criminal charges and the delay raises the very alarming prospect that while we're waiting on judge cannon, trump could begin receiving classified briefings as his party's presidential nominee, a custom dating back to harry truman. more imminently, he'll be meeting with foreign leaders including a sit-down with hungary's strongman viktor orban later this week. we're not saying he's going to be sharing classified information with orban. he does have a history of, you know, divulging highly classified information to the russian foreign minister and ambassador. trump's legal issues with the classified material puts republicans in a very weird place with their nominee. in 2016, senator john cornyn cosponsored a bill trying to

strip democratic presidential nominee hillary clinton of her security clearance and block her from receiving briefings. cornyn said, and i quote, when individuals mishandle our country's most sensitive information, they jeopardize national security and shouldn't be trusted with such an important responsibility. well, we reached out to cornyn's office today and have not received a response, a comment to see if he's still consistent with those views when it comes to trump. in the meantime, trump could have the republican nomination locked up by tomorrow. which means he could begin receiving briefings in short order. as mark herman writes in the dally beast, in a normal world, this wouldn't happen. no responsible party would nominate for president a person who had disclosed classified information in the past, is under credible suspicion of having stolen and concealed classified information in the present, and who is under immense pressure to sell classified information in the

future. but here we are. isn't anyone else nervous about this? joining us now is christopher mcknight nichols, professor of history and chair in national security studies at ohio state university. are you nervous, professor? >> i am nervous. as you said, this is unprecedented. we said that a lot about the trump presidency and now his post presidency, but the release of classified information, the mishandling, the willfulness as well as the accidental ways in which donald trump has dealt with classified information, makes me nervous, makes all of the experts i know nervous, and it should make us all concerned. >> let me just go through some of the history. there was a congressman david cicilline who back in 2016 asked president obama to keep classified intel from trump back then. and why did he ask him to do that? let's play the tape. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the

30,000 emails that are missing. >> and he actually did. russia did. they did what he asked them to do. they went into hillary clinton's emails. after that, you have president biden barring trump from receiving intelligence briefings after he left office and this is in february of 2021, because january 6th, he had already been a national security threat. and then i'll give you the last piece of data here. his debt. donald trump now owes in excess of $500 million to the state of new york, $88 million to e. jean carroll. he has to figure out where to get the money from. we don't go what classified information he sill might be retaining. what do you make of the fact no republicans are calling for his access to classified information to be removed? >> it's fascinating in the longer history of the republican party, the republican party has positioned itself in the 20th century as the party of national security, the party of at times hawkishness in foreign policy, military policy, and absolute

secrecy, justifying kinds of actions many of us wouldn't want to have justified. the fact they're not coming out is just typical of what the republican party has become in recent years but it also is emblematic of a deeper concern i have and others have which is to say the republican party is fast and loose with intelligence information and national security questions. >> go through what the actual threat is here. because you know, i mean, donald trump needs money. he also got lots of foreign money when he was president. mades lots of money. foreign leaders were staying in his hotel in d.c. every time they swooped their card, he got paid. his son-in-law who initially couldn't get security clearance got $2 billion from the saudis. mr. mnuchin got a billion. it feels to me like the grift really could include, hey, viktor orban, you know what i

can give you? i need some money. >> absolutely. i think the way that people in security studies would talk about this is he has a history of using information to his benefit. and so does his family. so do other people in his orbit. you're mentioning ivanka. we could talk about for instance the patents she got in china. we could think about jared kushner, others. there's a whole lot of ways you can also think about trump disclosing information as benefitting the wider network in which he's operating. a little like mafia don or something along those lines. it isn't just national security questions like nuclear threats or things that we're concerned he may have taken to mar-a-lago. it's also about the credibility of the u.s., our allies and adversaries alike and operations like humanitarian operations we all would agree are benign and positive, such as dropping aid to the gazans right now. there's no reason to think jordanians would want secret information about say sources on the ground involved in those

operations, when, where, and how to drop that aid, getting to someone like trump who then might disclose it say to israelis for their own reasons or russians or orban or others. >> and right, we know he had a history i believe with the australian ambassador, even disclosing information to friends. he revealed israel's national security information to russians, he just did it. to me, it seems to me that we're in a position right now where the greatest national security threat in the country is the man who is poised to become the republican presidential nominee. and no one in the party is going to do anything about it. as a foreign countries look at us, as foreign leaders look at us, what does that tell them about the united states? >> certainly it tells them that the likely candidate for one of the two major parties can't be trusted with intelligence information. this is coming directly from them because we know that other countries have been withholding information. were withholding information late in the trump administration. and another thing to think about

is there were individuals within the trump administration withholding information from him. from the joint chiefs on down, from the national security council. and if you think about it in the greater scheme of things, in american democracy, you really don't want a president who isn't trusted by his own officials, much less by other countries. much less by allies with information. so as you think about those dimensions, both accidental and willful misudof information, it's incredibly concerning. >> take that and remind yourself some of the people he put in his administration include michael flynn. we're in trouble, y'all. welcome to the show and thank you very much. still ahead, vice president harris calls for an immediate cease-fire in gaza and meets with benjamin netanyahu's chief political rival. hmm. we'll be right back. (sigh) if you struggle with cpap... you should check out inspire. no mask. no hose. just sleep.

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today, vice president kamala harris met with netanyahu's biggest political rival. israeli war cabinet official benny gantz where they discussed the urgency of achieving a hostage deal. harris reiterated the administration's standard line about israel's right to defend itself, but she expressed deep concern over the humanitarian situation in gaza. the meeting comes one day after the vice president made this striking call for an immediate cease-fire while commemorating the bloody sunday march where

john lewis and other civil rights activists were beaten in selma, alabama, in 1965. >> people in gaza are starving. the conditions are inhumane. and our common humanity compels us to act. the threat of hamas poses to the people of israel must be eliminated. and given the immense scale of suffering in gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire. for at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table. hamas claims it wants a cease-fire. well, there is a deal on the table. and as we have said, hamas needs to agree to that deal. >> and while her remarks are the

most forceful that we have heard from anyone in the administration on the suffering in gaza, and the cheers from the crowd clearly reflected the popularity of that position among large parts of the democratic base, harris' call echoes the six-week cease-fire that president biden called for last week, with both biden and harris putting the onus on hamas to agree to it. the vice president insisted today that she and the president have been aligned from the beginning. the strong rhetoric from the administration comes as the humanitarian situation is indeed worsening with more than 30,500 people dead, according to gaza officials. and the united nations saying that famine is inevitable. today, a palestinian u.s. official accused israel of using starvation as a weapon of war. and the palestinian ministry of information said that 16 children have died of malnutrition and dehydration. joining me is senator chris van holland of maryland, a member of the senate foreign relations

committee who said recently there is no excuse for the humanitarian crisis in gaza. i as you and i'm sure lots of other people watch these images of american sort of air balloons dropping food on the beaches of gaza and people cheering and running to get the balloons, and where watched it with sort of a combination of happiness that they're getting food and also sort of heartbreak that that's what we're down to. what do you make of the fact it does appear that vice president harris is taking the lead on a different tack, at least rhetorically, and there we can see the balloons, and the administration seems to be shifting away from netanyahu? she said in strong terms. she was right to defend israel's right to defend itself against hamas but she also was right that that right does not

extend to restricting humanitarian aid coming into gaza. we now have at least 15 kids who have died of starvation, so there are hundreds of thousands who are on the verge of starvation, but we now have kids who have died of starvation. like you, i was pleased to see the president order the airdrops, that will only be a drop in the bucket given the need. the president has to demand, and he said there are no excuses, that the netanyahu government open more of the crossings, that the netanyahu government and the arbitrary restrictions on so much assistance trying to get into the people of gaza, and that the netanyahu government make it safe to deliver assistance because humanitarian aid workers have been killed by israeli forces in the process of trying to get food to starving people. so, it is important the president say that, but now it's going to be more important

than the president use leverage to make that happen. >> do you think that having the vice president made with benny gantz, who is a political rival of netanyahu, it's part of that pressure of essentially taking that away from netanyahu's under indictment, is facing massive protests against him, including by hostage families, and is responsible for -- the laws of war as him -- make him responsible for the military outlook in gaza. is this administration, in your view, finally taking a step away from him? >> well, you are right. it does make prime minister netanyahu responsible as well as people like smoke church and ben-gvir who have openly called for preventing humanitarian assistance from getting into gaza. look, i think this was an important move. we know that prime minister netanyahu is upset that benny gantz is here. he said that their ambassador, the israeli ambassador, should not accompany him to the

meetings. we know that prime minister netanyahu time and time again has very publicly rebuffed the president of the united states, so i do think it is very appropriate that the vice president meet with benny gantz and it's also going to be essential that the president and the vice president make it clear that the united states is going to follow through and there will be consequences for not allowing more aid to get in because people are literally starving to death. >> yeah, the situation there is so horrific. i think a lot of americans are fixated on aid to the extent where there are parts of president biden's base that are saying they will not vote for him. you are now seeing donald trump try to take advantage of that. this is a story from the new york times. trump has really said almost nothing about what he would do differently in gaza. they are discussing among his aides away to drive the palestinian wedge deeper into the democratic party by running

advertisements in heavily muslim areas of michigan which would thank mr. biden for standing with israel. that would be ironic, of course, because it is donald trump who drafted a peace deal with saudi arabia and gave his son-in-law two billion dollars. it left the palestinians out. he abandoned it decades of the u.s. position that west bank settlements are illegal and are a barrier to peace. he moved the embassy into jerusalem, close the u.s. mission to palestine, recognized israeli sovereignty in the golan heights -- i could go on and on. what do you make of the fact that he is now looking to exploit the range of parts of president biden's base by advertising directly to muslim americans? >> joy, you are right. this is the old trump playbook of trying to divide people against one another based on race or ethnicity. here he goes again. i fully understand the protest votes of so many americans in

the primary. it would be very important that those voters come home and support biden in the general for the reasons that you are talking about. when it comes right down to it, president biden is calling for at least some light at the end of this very dark tunnel by creating a palestinian estate or a palestinian -- or palestinians can live in dignity and israel can live in security. part of that leads to the normalization of relations between saudi arabia and israel. donald trump cut off funding, even humanitarian assistance to type of funding, to the palestinians. he had a terrible record. bibi netanyahu, prime minister netanyahu, fully embraced trump. trump might be a little upset now that prime minister netanyahu realize that joe biden was actually elected, but right, we know what donald trump's record was. >> yeah, indeed. senator, i wish we were out of time. i wish we had more time.

senator chris van hollen, please come back. i would love to talk with you more about this. we will be right back. right b. voices of people with cidp: cidp disrupts. cidp derails. let's be honest... all: cidp sucks! voices of people with cidp: but living with cidp doesn't have to. when you sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com, you'll find inspiration in real patient stories, helpful tips, reliable information, and more. cidp can be tough. but finding hope just got a little easier. sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com. all: be heard. be hopeful. be you.

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tomorrow night, be sure to join me and the rest of the msnbc team for special coverage of super tuesday, including steve karnak at the big board. our special coverage begins at six pm eastern. that's tonight's reidout. inside with jen psaki starts now. okay, i want to start tonight here in washington, d.c., where for the second time in under one week the supreme court weighed in on an issue related